The inside track on Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and all the award shows.

How 'Casablanca' beat nine other nominees to win best picture at the 1943 Oscars

March 11, 2010 | 11:11
am

Before this year, the last time there were 10 best picture nominees at the Oscars was in 1943, when "Casablanca"
won. On the Rotten Tomatoes ranking of all of the best picture winners at the Oscars, this year's champ, "The Hurt Locker," sits at No. 13 just above "Casablanca."

In the run-up to the Oscars, "The
Hurt Locker" won over the New York Film Critics Circle while
"Up in the Air" was the choice of the National Board of Review and
"Avatar" was the Golden Globe pick for best drama pic. Back in 1943, there was also disagreement over the year's best
picture as three films took the precursor awards: "Watch on the
Rhine" won with the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review went with "The Ox-Bow
Incident," and "The Song of
Bernadette" triumphed at
the brand-new Golden Globes. Those kudos were so fledgling that there was no actual award but scrolls were presented to the winners on the various studio lots.

Even though Variety declared the film version of "Watch on the Rhine" even better than Lillian
Hellman's 1941 Broadway production -- which had won best play from
the New York Drama Critics Circle -- it had a hard time winning over the New York Film Critics Circle. On the first
ballot, it tied director Clarence Brown's "The Human
Comedy" and didn't amass enough votes to break away to win until the
sixth ballot. "Casablanca" was not a significant contender.

Newsweek called "Casablanca" "absorbing, escapist entertainment," and
Variety gave it a respectful review that didn't decree it to be either
good or bad, but its critic seemed to like the performances and got a
kick out of seeing Humphrey Bogart cast as "a tender heart" instead of a
grizzled gangster. However, the New York World-Telegram said
"Casablanca" was "not the best of
the recent Bogarts."

A film critic widely ridiculed by modern-day film critics -- Bosley Crowther of the New York Times -- loved "Casablanca": "Indeed
the Warners here have a picture which makes the spine tingle and heart
take a leap . . . . They have so combined sentiment, humor and pathos
with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue that the result is a highly
entertaining and even inspiring film."

A critic who is worshiped by today's critical hipsters -- Manny
Farber -- lambasted "Casablanca" in the New Republic:
"Hollywood often uses its best players, writers and directors for its
epic phonies…. Each studio has its preference …. Warner's is
'Casablanca.' The 'Casablanca' kind of hokum was good in its original
context in other movies, but, lifted into Casablanca for the sake of its
glitter and not incorporated into it, loses its meaning … Bogart's
humanitarian killer, who was disillusioned apparently at his mother's
breast, has to say some silly things and play God too often to be as
believably tough as he was in his last eight pictures."

Going into the March 2, 1944, Oscars, "The Song of
Bernadette" led with the most nominations (12), followed by "For Whom
the Bell Tolls" (nine). Both had been the big Christmas 1943 releases from their respective studios -- Fox and Paramount -- and ballyhooed
as the Oscars front-runners. Warners had opened "Casablanca" more than a year earlier -- first in New York City
in November 1942, timed with the U.S. invasion of Casablanca during
World War II, and then in Los Angeles in January 1943, thereby
qualifying for the 1943 Oscars. It earned eight nominations, including the first best actor bid for Bogart.

In addition to "The Song of Bernadette" and "For Whom the Bell
Tolls," "Casablanca" squared off against seven other nominees for best
picture at the Oscars: "Heaven Can Wait," "The Human Comedy,"
"In Which We Serve," "Madame Curie," "The More the Merrier," "The Ox-Bow
Incident" and "Watch on the Rhine."

After "Bernadette" and "Bell" lost to "Casablanca," Variety
credited the upset to the front-runners operating snobbish, greedy
campaigns. Tickets to see these pictures were too expensive,
and the films were shown too infrequently at exclusive screenings. As a
result, they weren't seen by 75% of film extras who constituted a vast
portion of the academy membership back then. Extras -- those spear
carriers, crowd members, sidewalk passersby in films -- were such a
powerful voting bloc that they boosted
one of their own, Walter Brennan, to three supporting wins for "Come and Get It"
(1936), "Kentucky" (1938) and "The Westerner" (1940). That record still stands among male actors, shared with Jack Nicholson.

"The Song of Bernadette" won four Oscars -- best actress (Jennifer Jones), art direction (B&W), cinematography (B&W) and score. Oscar rung only once for "Bell" with a supporting actress win for Katina
Paxinou. Lead actor Paul Lukas won the only Oscar out of four bids for "Watch on the Rhine," while supporting actor champ Charles Coburn was the only winner out of the six nominations for "The More the Merrier." And "The Human Comedy" won just one of its five races with the original story Oscar going to William Saroyan.

"In Which We Serve" -- which had won best film from the Gotham critics in 1942 -- lost its bids for best picture and screenplay, but writer and co-director Noel Coward was given an honorary Oscar for "his outstanding production achievement." "Madame Curie" lost all seven of its races, while "Heaven Can Wait" went 0 for 3 and "The Ox-Bow Incident" lost its sole bid.